Monday, March 28, 2011

Ever Wonder What Life Would Be Like If Everyone Showed Up To Class - Ready to Learn?

We All Have a LOT to Learn - Are We Ready to Listen? Are We Teachable?

﻿When I posted about the gospel in my last two posts, I got an incredible amount of feedback on Facebook and in personal e-mails… and all of it was so positive and all of them put their name. These blogs also had the highest number of “hits” over a two day period, since I began blogging. From my perspective, it is always good when people are talking about the gospel, whether they agree with you or not, at least they are talking about it. I had received no comments in a negative fashion, until this past Thursday, when I received the comment below. Even though I explicitly stated that you needed to include your first and last name in order to post, when I saw that I had a negative post - I decided to put it up anyway because it was actually questioning and brought out points to think about – not just spewing irrationally. I decided to post it (even without them stating their name) because I thought it would serve as a teaching opportunity as to what our modern day problem is in our watered down gospel society.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "If This Makes You Mad....I'll Be Ok":

Don't take this the wrong way, but I have always held the belief that sowing seeds is a good thing. Who cares if some or even most of the people simply made an emotional response? They heard how Jesus died for our sins and desires a relationship with us, provided we turn from our old ways of living and strive to honor Him. Where's the harm? You might consider getting off your high horse and spending the time it took you to write this post going to the lost and telling them that Jesus died for them.

Okay, let’s take this point by point. In the first sentence he/she states “sowing seeds is a good thing.” I am sure the “sowing” you are speaking of is referring to Luke 8 and the Parable of the Soils. Now, some call this the parable of “The Sower”… but the theme of this parable is not the one who sows the seed, but rather the soil where the seed falls. Can I point out that the “SEED” never changes? In fact, in farming today in order to get something to grow in “bad” soil it takes a synthetic seed. In short, it takes a seed that has been altered for the soil to accept it. This is fantastic for farming and for those of us who enjoy eating, but it is deadly when we try to make the gospel synthetic. When we try to change the “seed” to fit the soil, we move beyond what the “sower” is called to do. We are not called to alter the seed, we are called to distribute – give out - the seed. The great Reformer Martin Luther, when speaking about this parable, said it this way:

Thus all heretics, fanatics and sects belong to this number, who understand the Gospel in a carnal way and explain it as they please, to suit their own ideas, all of whom hear the Gospel and yet they bear no fruit, yea, more, they are governed by Satan and are harder oppressed by human institutions than they were before they heard the Word…. For where this Word is not, there is no salvation, and great works or holy lives avail nothing, for [it is] with this, that he says: "They shall not be saved," since they have not the Word, he shows forcibly enough, that not their works but their faith in the Word alone saves, as Paul says to the Romans: "It is, the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom 1:16).

Sowing seed friend, is great as long is the seed is right. If I was told to plant corn in a field and planted soy bean, the owner of the property would not accept my excuse that “I thought sowing seed was a good thing.” It is a good thing only if I am sowing the right seed.

Now the idea of sowing any ole seed will do, is made more apparent in your next statement:

Who cares if some or even most of the people simply made an emotional response? They heard how Jesus died for our sins and desires a relationship with us, provided we turn from our old ways of living and strive to honor Him. Where's the harm?

I am simply hoping you didn’t proof read your comment before you sent it. Really? “Who cares if they made an emotional response?” Seriously, have you read verse 6 of Luke 8? Who cares if they made an emotional decision? Who cares if they didn’t grasp the gospel and we have now twice damned them? Where could this type of thinking come from? How did we get here you ask? Let me help you—there was another man who did incredible damage to the gospel and did it in such a way that we still hold the ashes of what he did today. Does the quote below sound even vaguely familiar to what you are saying?

I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction, and into a state of temporary repentance and faith . . . . [But] falling short of urging them up to a point, where they would become so acquainted with Christ as to abide in Him, they would of course soon relapse into their former state [cited in B. B. Warfield, Studies in Perfectionism, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1932), 2:24]. By Charles Finney

Who cares? I tell you who cares…God cares how His gospel is presented. When the gospel presentation of our great grandparent’s day is so dramatically different than the one prevalent today, we must ask ourselves where the message, the seed, changed….who has false information? Much, if not all of the training done in the majority of our seminaries in the 1960’s to late 1980’s was done by men who denied the truth of God’s Word. So, while we had great men like Adrian Rogers, W.A Criswell and many others fighting to turn our convention, we had a generations of Southern Baptist who were in line with them fighting for the inerrancy of The Book, but really had no clue what it said. We had few men that really grasped the importance of the true message of the gospel, and a widespread “crop” who had been birthed off a rapidly changing synthetic seed, who never understood the true message…and therefore, never truly understood the importance the inerrancy they were fighting for, the sufficiency of the Scripture they perused, the completeness of a true gospel that they never sowed. So, to answer your question: “Where’s the harm?” the harm is when one changes the message it does violence to the gospel, it damages the truth. Where is the harm? Would you ask the same thing if someone put less than ¼ ounce of poison into a baby’s bottle? After all, most of it is good. No, the ¼ ounce of the foreign substance poisons the entire bottle. Here is the harm - it damns the message - the message that Christ was tortured because God is angry at sin and sinner all day long, that nothing can ever appease Him outside the violent death of the cross. The harm is that it fails to point out to man, than God is terrifying outside of the cross. This “high horse” is not what it appears…it is a high calling, a high view of the cross, a high view of our Lord that will not allow me to make it palatable to the human soil. He is not a cheap used vehicle that I am trying to make a quick sale on – His gospel cannot be changed to fit this man’s view of God over here, and altered to align with her view of God over there. It is the same gospel message for every nation, every race – every sinner. God is God Almighty and it is His message, who are we to believe that we have the right to change it, have discourse on whether it is politically correct or what would make it more palatable. He gave ample examples in Scripture as to what message is given and how it is to be guarded, why do we believe that we are able to see better than He, how it just needs a little tweaking to be more acceptable in our modern day society. I don’t believe that most of these individuals knowingly, willingly, whole-heartedly set out to do harm to the gospel – they have come up through these years of training that have so maligned the message in an effort to make it “relevant”, that we no longer see the need to evaluate what the message is – we are simply pragmatic…if the message that we give gets them to pray a prayer, it must be ok. The Gospel is NOT pragmatic! It is up to us to report a TRUE GOSPEL…it is up to God who will be saved. It is what it is, we don’t write the message we just report it.